Question #1: My initial thought about rivals is the same thought I have about every other mobel C&C game that has been released, and that is no interest at all. Maybe the only good thing that can come from this is a younger audience will know what C&C is, and maybe one day a true C&C game can be made.

Question #2: Rivals has not change my thought on C&C. C&C is just dormant for the current time, until a true revival takes place we can still enjoy older C&C games.

Question #3: C&C has fallen apart do to over expectations. People feel as though C&C games always have to push the boundaries. Regardless to what people think, C&C it is a small scale RTS game, never meant to be large. C&C has also fallen due to RTS games being more involved than other game genres. Most players want a more casual and quick gameplay, due to real life activities.

Question #4: Sadly, I do not follow any C&C projects any more. This is due to me almost not playing video games at all these days... I play more simple card games like solitaire or poker, due to time constraints.

Question #5: Sadly there are none, just the occasional Yuris revenge...

Question #6: Truthfully, I really liked Tiberium Wars and the expansion Kane's Wrath, the multiplayer was set up pretty decent.

Question #7: I do not see to much hope for RTS these days, there just isn't a market for it, so developers stay clear from it. If a RTS game does come around, the developers try to change up the mechanics to try and find the next "thing", but its causing a more harmful effect.

Reaperrr

Posted: Thu Oct 11, 2018 1:26 am Post subject:

Question 1.1: Meh...
Question 1.2: No.

Question 2.1: No.
Question 2.2: Yes.
Prior to Rivals, I already considered C&C dead (in terms of future projects). Any positive development, like a HD remake of older C&Cs or an actually decent new C&C would surprise me, and anything less positive just isn't worth getting worked up over at this point.

Question #3:
Like others have mentioned, I think it's more that other communities aren't as spread out over multiple games and more focused.
Additionally, with most C&Cs being moddable and still playable on Win7/10, the pressure to join or at least contribute to projects like OpenRA is considerably lower compared to OpenTT, for example.
Another aspect is that in terms of overall numbers, the community has simply shrunk, with some experienced modders leaving and few inexperienced modders joining. That's pretty normal if nothing disruptive like a new, moddable C&C happens for so long.

Some of the WIP OpenRA projects might draw in some fresh blood, though (OpenRA itself kind of already has, since the KKnD and Dark Reign remakes are made by people from outside the known C&C modding community).

Question #4:
Loosely following other promising OpenRA projects like Nomad Galaxy and the KKnD & Dark Reign remakes. Other than that, I'm occupied with working on OpenRA and some projects of my own.

Question #5:
None. Only playing (or rather testing) OpenRA/my own OpenRA projects nowadays.
The only other RTS I played in recent years was the StarCraft2 trilogy, though more for the plot than gameplay.

Question #6:
I agree with G-E here, E:BFD was in many aspects actually the best RTS WW/EA ever made, a real shame that later C&C titles never really borrowed many (or even any) of the good aspects.

To me, an ideal RTS would have a single, long campaign, semi-dynamic similar to EBFD's, but with more variety in mission design and deeper plot with lots more optional side-missions, different what-if scenarios/endings etc., in other words high re-play value.
On the gameplay side, "quality over quantity", with strong rock-paper-scissors emphasis (to avoid fool-proof strategies like tank rushes), directional armor and so on.
It should have real bases (no CoH-style gameplay!), but more emphasis on battle over base-building/economy.

Question #7:
From big publishers, IMO no. Unless Blizzard actually decides to make WC4 or SC3, though given their dev process, not sure if that would count as "forseeable future"...
From indies: hope definitely, but no 100% confidence as making a really good RTS that I'd enjoy is, in fact, hard (because a good, fun singleplayer campaign that actually puts emphasis on plot and variety - rather than satisfying bored hardcore RTS veterans and rushers - is vital to me).

5: Red Alert 2, Age of Empires 2, War Craft 2 and 3, Galactic Battlegrounds are the main RTS I have been playing.

6: An Ideal RTS for me would having the option of playing the various different Styles in a single game. Each playstyle offering you a viable strategy while also still being balanced accordingly so not all factions are OP than the rest.

7: The only recent RTS Game I've seen that was able to pull off the streamlining and making a casual version of RTS is Tooth and Tail. Came from an indie dev company and also has its inspirations rooted in C&C too.

G-E

Posted: Tue Oct 09, 2018 6:04 am Post subject:

1-2: Don't care, they already know they haven't got any new ideas for the series, and frankly they don't seem to want to make a better version of the original type of game either. As far as I'm concerned, the C&C era is over, aside from mods.

3: I agree with Banshee to some degree here, people are the problem, but I will be more nuanced. We have dozens of community tools and methods of creating new assets, we have at least 4 major sources of detailed info that will solve every problem, but what we lack is coherency among them all. By that I mean we have every resource or writeup scattered across a zillion threads and sites, we have bits and pieces everywhere, yet seemingly nowhere at the same time. So the end result of this is that a n00b comes here thinking "wow I can do this" and then realizes it's a lot harder than it looks to achieve something worthy. Then you can see their interest fall off the cliff.

4: Don't follow any, but a friend keeps sending me links to indie or kickstarter games that are in the 8-bit styles, which I think going forward will be a almost a second-tier of gaming, as it is adaptable to all platforms. The main tier I see is going to continue to be third-person fps and adventure games, Cyberpunk, Skyrim, Darksouls, GTA, etc, and what we're mainly going to see is new developers coming online from unusual places like Czech or Poland that will be driving innovation as the major "game studios" like EA will continue to rehash and flounder in old ideas.

5: Nothing rts that I've seen coming interests me, the closest I can get to interest is the retro Diablo-like games.

6: As a standalone game, Emperor BFD nailed what a good rts should be, it ticked all the boxes, felt great, sounded great, had a good pace to it. It just needed to be "bigger" in vision to be perfect. Like a more open world, vast scenery, something that would make you feel like you're in a giant galaxy on a giant planet, not just a small grid square. For this reason I still have to say RA2 as an engine and basic design is the best of the best, but as we all know RA2 shipped with terrible assets and even worse maps. Thus the key for RA2's appeal is the mods, but the engine was definitely done right.

7: I highly doubt it, or at least not as we know the genre. EA would never do the one thing that would win over everyone, and that is a double-scale RA2. Imagine everything scaled up to match today's high-res displays, allow 1000x1000 maps, allow 16 players, make a cell size 120x60px with the option to zoom to half. While making more resources even buildings into voxels, so that pieces can be destroyed or deformed, with real building/unit fragments as debris. Perhaps with the addition of more kinds of 3D particle/flame/smoke effects to complement the sprites.

Banshee

Posted: Tue Oct 09, 2018 1:11 am Post subject:

@world war 3: What is your account? Email me at webmaster[at]ppmsite[dot]com (replace [at] with @ and [dot] with . )

@LKO: #3:

Lin Kuei Ominae wrote:

I recently found the average modder here on PPM getting pretty inexperienced and lazy. It's more and more "give me that feature" than actually spending time to push the boundaries of the limited engine themselves or actually trying to get something done themselves before asking here basic questions for the 1000th time.

The name of the problem is "human beings". That's the same thing that Plokite_Wolf was also complaining when I was talking to him about this question #3. Unfortunately, the best low term medicine for that is patience... and the long term is that we need a better way to organize our content to allow people to find answers for these kind of questions in a faster pace. Most visitors are lazy to google for things and there is also a language barrier on some cases.

Lin Kuei Ominae wrote:

PPM also got pretty quite imo, like not much activity anymore.
I also miss the old days when there were also some crazy/funny people around.

I agree that our activity is lower nowadays, however, I'm trying to change it by trying to make the site look more active with news posts by hunting news on other communities.

world war 3

Posted: Tue Oct 09, 2018 12:31 am Post subject:

how to recover my account here

4StarGeneral

Posted: Tue Oct 09, 2018 12:07 am Post subject:

#1 - I understand that it is a mobile game and to be taken as such, but it is so simple that it shouldn't even be considered an RTS. It's an indirect copy of clash royale with C&C characters that don't fit in anywhere together or make sense. My feelings on this won't change.

#2 - Rivals hasn't affected my feelings about the series because I just write it off as what it is, a clash royale reskin, not C&C.

#3 - I don't know where this "but the C&C community seems to have grown lazy and apathetic" is coming from when there's constantly new things coming out unless they're just ignoring PPM. Ares, Image Shaper, OpenRA, plenty of still ongoing great mods, and some mods still under development not ready to be shown publicly; Modding is not dead at all, though I wish people would be more adventurous instead of the usual "Whiteboy's Mod", that part I can see why someone may say it's grown lazy.

#4 - OpenRA and Ares mostly, but also DTA, MO, and D-Day (sorry TI, I've never been a huge fan of TS's metagame).

#5 - Still C&C, Age of Empires, Company of Heroes 2, and Grey Goo. I do play turn-based games as well like Might and Magic Heroes VI and Fire Emblem.

#6 - An ideal RTS for me would have to be something that hasn't been overdone, no aliens, no tank/infantry spam gameplay, perhaps a RTS version of Fire Emblem where the rock/paper/scissors gameplay has a real effect on the fight. It would also have to have base building so that I can effectively turtle. Battleforge is being revived and has a very unique style to it, probably the closest to what I would want.

#7 - As LKO stated, not from big companies, but definitely from indie developers like we have been getting.

Lin Kuei Ominae

Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2018 9:36 pm Post subject:

#1 i have a telephone not a mobile gaming phone, thus can't care less about mobile games.

#2 don't care what EA or any other companies create in the name of the C&C franchise

#3 can't really compare them since i never played those.
I recently found the average modder here on PPM getting pretty inexperienced and lazy. It's more and more "give me that feature" than actually spending time to push the boundaries of the limited engine themselves or actually trying to get something done themselves before asking here basic questions for the 1000th time.
PPM also got pretty quite imo, like not much activity anymore.
I also miss the old days when there were also some crazy/funny people around.

#4 OpenRA's development is pretty much on top and with it the mods/games based on it. Then DTA, TI, though both got pretty quite these days, a bit Ares and what kind of features it adds in every version.

#5 sometimes i play Star Trek: Birth of the Federation. Has a pretty cool atmosphere, 5 different races and some diverse strategies. Round based makes it pretty slow, but after a hectic day at work that can be quite relaxing.

#6 hard to define, but i would say it should add some new interesting logics that enhance gameplay in a strategic way. Back then, C&C titles managed to do that in almost every new game.
e.g.
an idea i had for quite some time is a special artillery suppressive fire mode. Select your artys, then hold ctrl for force fire and draw some kind of circle by keeping the mouse pressed. When releasing the mouse, the artilleries will fire randomly inside that area.
Something like this would be easy to do for the player, yet offer a nice little logic.

An ideal RTS would be of course also balanced, easy to play, offer diverse sides with different tactics and unit features, though no special secondary magic spell on every unit making it too cluttered. Starcraft found a nice middle here, classic C&C's lack this completely ("deploy" logic is often too simple and repetitive imo).

#7 from big publishers, no. From indie devs, definitely. The future of game development is in the hands of those that play themselves, not those that only see profit.

The Roundtable Discussion feature from our friends at CNCNZ.com is back. In the current edition, they've interviewed several community members, including yours trully, with several polemic questions related to the latest activity on the Command & Conquer community:

Quote:

Question #1: What were your initial reactions to Command & Conquer: Rivals? Have your feelings on the game changed in any way since?

Question #2: Has Rivals in any way affected your feelings towards the franchise as a whole? Are you able to play the previous games just the same?

Question #3: Certain other classic game communities continue to thrive despite the lack of publisher support (Supreme Commander, Transport/RollerCoaster Tycoon, Pandemic’s version of Battlefront…), but the C&C community seems to have grown lazy and apathetic. What would you point to as reasons for this discrepancy?

Question #4: What community projects are you following these days?

Question #5: Are any other RTS titles in your current “playlist”? If so, which ones, and what captivated you?

Question #6: What would an ideal RTS (C&C or otherwise) look like for you?

Question #7: Is there any hope that we’ll see a new good RTS in the foreseeable future, either from big publishers or indie developers?

You can read people's answers here. However, we are inviting to go further on that one and posts your answers in a reply to this topic, why not? That question #3 is still being discussed among us today and I think I might have a good contribution on how to improve the user interface for future C&C games and even make a mobile experience that might be closer to the PC experience in the question #6. So, go ahead and let's use this opportunity to discuss a better future for the C&C community. Go, go, go!